County Commissioner Proposes Moratorium on Capital Prosecutions in Dallas, Texas

A Dallas, Texas, coun­ty com­mis­sion­er has called for a two-year halt on death-penal­ty tri­als, say­ing it would give the coun­ty time to study the finan­cial and eth­i­cal costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. On August 6, 2019, Commissioner J.J. Koch (pic­tured) pro­posed a coun­ty mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions, with cost sav­ings from not pur­su­ing the death penal­ty redi­rect­ed toward inves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing human traf­fick­ing cas­es. The pro­pos­al was notable com­ing in a coun­ty that has exe­cut­ed more pris­on­ers since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s than any oth­er coun­ty except Harris, Texas.

Several coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers expressed sup­port for Koch’s pro­pos­al, although they acknowl­edged that the plan was aspi­ra­tional and that they could not direct the dis­trict attor­ney, who has exclu­sive charg­ing author­i­ty, to enforce it. District Attorney John Creuzot com­mend­ed Koch ​“for hav­ing the courage to bring … up” the issue. Creuzot said he sup­port­ed dis­cussing the pro­pos­al but could not com­mit him­self to a mora­to­ri­um on pros­e­cu­tions ​“because I don’t know what’s around the corner.” 

Creuzot recent­ly announced that Dallas pros­e­cu­tors will seek the death penal­ty against Billy Chemirmir, accused in the deaths of more than a dozen elder­ly women in North Texas senior liv­ing com­plex­es. The tri­al and poten­tial appeals are expect­ed to be extreme­ly cost­ly for the coun­ty. Creuzot told the Dallas Morning News that he sup­ports pur­su­ing the death penal­ty in cir­cum­stances in which a defen­dant pos­es a ​“con­tin­u­ing threat in the penal soci­ety.” In oth­er cas­es, he said, a sen­tence of life with­out parole can equal­ly and less expen­sive­ly pro­tect public safety. 

Citing the Dallas County case of Kenneth Thomas, Creuzot said “[i]t’s becom­ing more and more dif­fi­cult to sus­tain a death penal­ty con­vic­tion.” Thomas has been sen­tenced to death twice, with his first death sen­tence imposed in 1987. However, his death sen­tences were over­turned both times as a result of prej­u­di­cial con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions in each tri­al. Most recent­ly, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals direct­ed that he be pro­vid­ed a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing on his claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. A pri­or sen­tenc­ing jury had reject­ed that claim, but had applied a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly invalid and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard for eval­u­at­ing intellectual disability. 

Commissioners John Wiley Price and Elba Garcia agreed with Koch’s pro­posed mora­to­ri­um on pros­e­cu­tions, and Commissioner Theresa Daniel said she looked for­ward to dis­cussing the issue, with pros­e­cu­tors and judges includ­ed in the dis­cus­sion. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins also voiced sup­port for a mora­to­ri­um, but reit­er­at­ed that it would be under the dis­trict attorney’s dis­cre­tion. Koch agreed, say­ing, ​“We can’t do any­thing uni­lat­er­al­ly. It’s his depart­ment.” Nevertheless, he said, the com­mis­sion­ers could adopt a mora­to­ri­um res­o­lu­tion to express their views on cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions, not­ing that they also con­trol the bud­get of the dis­trict attorney’s office. 

Dallas has exe­cut­ed 60 pris­on­ers since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute in Jurek v. Texas in 1976, more than 28 cur­rent or for­mer death-penal­ty states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Only Harris County (Houston), with 129, has car­ried out more exe­cu­tions. Dallas’s 31-per­son death-row on January 1, 2013 was the 14^th largest of any coun­ty in the U.S., and juries in the coun­ty imposed three more death sen­tences that year. Since 2013, how­ev­er, only one per­son has been sen­tenced to death in the county.